Hüsker Dü drummer and songwriter Grant Hart dies age 56
Grant Hart, legendary drummer and singer/songwriter of St. Paul, Minnesota based hardcore punk band Hüsker Dü, passed away on September 14, of cancer. He was 56 years old. Hart was known most famously as the counterbalance to Bob Mould’s acidity on the band’s albums.
Hart’s compositions tended towards the more melodic with topics ranging more broadly than the typical punk anthem. Songs like ‘Green Eyes’ from Flip Your Wig and ‘The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill’ from New Day Rising, serve to strike an almost sentimental tone to Mould’s rage. This yin and yang provided the tension that kept their albums interesting and more expansive than their peers, but also created a growing rift leading to the band’s demise.
His propulsive drumming anchored the rhythm section along with bassist Greg Norton and can be heard most prominently in songs like ‘The Terms of Psychic Warfare’, while he also penned one of their most well-known songs in ‘Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely’. After the band’s demise Hart went on to lead Nova Mob (switching to guitar) and also had a solo career. A trail blazer in every sense, Hart may have achieved his goal of making it to see the girl who lives “up on Heaven hill” after all.
